I’m amazed at how radiant and kind-faced Gran Newt, my great-great grandmother on my dad’s father’s father’s side, looks in this photo, considering she raised her children in a house without a ceiling. Her son told the Drew, Mississippi newspaper it was so frigid on winter mornings that “when papa would walk through the hall to the other side of . . .
This shot of my mom’s father in front of Honolulu’s Ilikai Hotel is undated, but I tell myself it’s one of the last photos taken of him before his death in Phoenix, in 1970. I like to think he went out partying. My grandmother always claimed he died of cirrhosis of the liver. My mom, as I recall, disputes this, . . .
In 1944, in a fit of passion, my grandfather wrote out a will leaving everything to my mother, his only child. When he died a successful real estate broker in 1970, though, his plans were a little different.
At one time my maternal grandfather was a garment cutter. Later he had an auto repair shop. It’s unclear what all happened during the intervening years of carousing and various jobs and one near-fatal shooting, but he wound up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he became — of course — a successful real estate agent. According to my mom’s note, this . . .
For a woman who claimed to dislike drunks, my grandmother sure had a knack for attracting them. Of course she wasn’t responsible for her gallivanting father, Zone. And we have to give her a pass on the very charming first husband, Robert Bruce, who, Granny claimed, squandered so much of her money on booze, she couldn’t even afford to buy . . .